Fertility 2.0 - Black Rock City is a kind of Petri dish. Theme camps cling in fertile clusters to its latticework of streets, artworks tumble out of it, like pollen on the air. These nodes of interaction mutate, grow and reproduce their kind. Burning Man communities have now escaped this capsule world: our culture in a Petri dish has effloresced - it spreads across five continents. This year's art theme contemplates the tendency of any being or living system to create abundant life.

Bob wrote:I believe the '97 SOMARTS pre-event party theme was Mysteria. Event theme was Fertility: The Living Land or some crap.

I can't find "Fertility" listed anywhere other than Wikipedia as the '97 theme. According to the Bman Site there was no theme in '97 for the actual event. There is a listing in the 2008 Afterburn about the calendar having "a historical retrospective of the past 12 years of Burning Man art themes" which would take them back to '96, but, again, I haven't found anything official on a '96 or '97 theme.

Granted, unlike Bob, I wasn't there. I'd still like to find it somewhere on the Bman site, however.

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

Like I said- I can't find anything official (yet) that says that Fertility was the theme in '97 or any other year. Doesn't mean it wasn't, but as far as I've found it certainly isn't looking like it was. I may be eating my words later, but at least they're low calorie.

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

Found it! It was not the theme that year, but it had been planned to be.

Larry Harvey wrote:This was accompanied by a memorable motto: "Let's put the cult back into culture!" It focused on the idea of fertility. I'd intended to carry this theme forward onto the playa, but events of that year - chiefly, a pitched battle with authorities in Washoe County - forestalled these plans.

Yes, I chase down facts like this on everything. I once had someone say she wasn't going to argue with me because I "knew too much".

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

In the book, This Is Burning Man, Jim Mason is quoted:"The Burning Man organization gave Mason $4500 to create the piece. “I wrote my first annoying Jim Mason project description, the first time I tried coopting Larry's writing style,” recalls Mason. “The art theme was fertility that year, so I wrote a bullshit mythic narrative relating solar cycles to fertility."

According to this link - http://www.topeventsusa.com/nevada-burning-man-nevada.htmlPast themes of Burning Man have included Fertility, Time, Hell, Outer Space, The Body, The Floating World, Beyond Belief, Vault of Heaven, Psyche, Hope and Fear, The Green Man, and The American Dream. The theme for 2009 was "Evolution", the 2010 theme was "Metropolis" and the theme for 2011 is "Rights of Passage".

From what I'm gathering from the website, and from Larry's quote above, is that "fertility" was planned as the theme for '97, but due with problems with the county and the move to Fly Ranch it was never official. Apparently enough info was out that it was assumed to be the theme, but if you look at the Org's own timeline the first theme was 1998. Of course, like Pravda, the website has to be taken with a grain (or pound) of salt sometimes. I don't see a reason why they would distort the themes, however.

If you think this is a challenge, try to figure out why the first Burn took place...

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

Simon of the Playa wrote:eric, i'll have you know you have already caused a conspiracy on the BM facebook page..

Huh, just today someone changed the Burning Man Wikipedia chart and relisted the themes for '95, '96, '97 and '98 as "unofficial". '97 was also changed from Fertility to Mysteria. LOL!

sweet.

The themes they had up weren't listed as official on the Bman website.

The word "theme" doesn't even show up in the timeline until '98.

*shrug*

Whatever. For someone who ignores the theme every year I'm spending too much time rutting around in the minutia of past events. For all the impact it has on the world I might as well be studying cryptozoology.

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist

Ooh, look. It took all fucking day, but I have solid proof, and regardless of what the website says we have "Fertility" as the 1997 theme. I was wrong. Of all people I should know better than to trust Pravda. I can't believe the heavy footwork it took to get one printed piece of confirmation.

It's a camping trip in the desert, not the redemption of the fallen world - Cryptofishist